TO the ancient world Marcus Aurelius was best known not as a wise ruler and conqueror of German and Sarmatian barbarians but as philosopher and patron of learning. His Latin biographer[1] opens with the words: 'Marcus Antoninus, who was a lifelong philosopher, excelling all chiefs of the state in holiness'; so in the tenth century, in Suidas' Lexicon,[2] he is 'Marcus Antoninus, King of the Romans, the entirely laudable philosopher.' In his lifetime the advocates of Christian liberty so address him. Thus Justin Martyr in his first Apology[3] terms him Verissimus, the philosopher; and Athenagoras, an Athenian philosopher, begins with the address: 'To the Emperors M. Aurelius Antoninus and L. Aurelius Commodus, conquerors of Armenia and Sarmatia, but more than all else philosophers.'[4] Though professing philosophy as his guide in life and following her rule, Marcus makes no pretence to learning or wisdom for himself. Indeed, in the account of his education in his own first Book, he dwells on the variety and excellence of the teaching he had enjoyed, theoretical and practical alike, but expresses satisfaction more than once[5] that the admonition of his confidential teacher Rusticus, a sense of his own inability, and the urgent claims of his imperial station had diverted him from his boyish ambitions as student and author to the endeavour to act justly and to speak the truth, not to converse and write about goodness. Again, on the very threshold of his second Book, he interrupts himself to say: 'Put away your books, remember that you are an old man, do not suffer your real self to be any longer a bond-servant.'[6] That by his books he means not his library merely but actual composition is evident from a later passage: 'Do not wander from your path any longer; you are not likely to read your Notebooks, your Deeds of ancient worthies of Rome and Greece, the Extracts you made from literature and put by against old age.

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